


Deconstruction

by sharkduck



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Fallen Hero spoilers, Gen, Hollow Ground Is A Clone, Hollow Ground Is A Telepath, Hollow Ground Speaks In Vine References, M/M, Retribution Spoilers, h-geezy needs to leave the Rat King alone :(, telepathic torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 17:54:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17872004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkduck/pseuds/sharkduck
Summary: You're both so very, very screwed.Or, the fic in which Ortega and Sidestep are captured by Hollow Ground, and neither have a good time.





	Deconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for mentions of blood and brief gore!

Your nose hurts. It hurts enough that you can feel the ache in your teeth, pressure against your skull as you sit tied to a chair. Blood rolls down to your lip and past how tightly they’re pursed together, the taste of iron settling in the back of your throat. Aching from when he punched you in the face.

Hollow Ground. You. An older you. Maybe another clone; or maybe he’s the original, and you’re the clone. A copycat.

It doesn’t matter now. Nothing fucking matters, because you’re strapped to a chair with Hollow Ground leering at you from across the room, grinning smugly enough that it sets your blood boiling with Ortega beside you glaring holes into your skin. He knows. And you’ve lost. You feel pathetic and like you want to cry and you’re sure Hollow Ground can feel it, and it makes him grin even wider.

He’s been slowly chipping away at your shields since you got here. You think he’s nearly succeeded. It’ll be a battle once he gets in – one that you’re not sure you have the strength to win.

“Oh, this is delicious,” Hollow Ground coos, tapping a finger against a crossed arm, “like something out of a movie! The hero and the villain form an unlikely truce to take down the bigger threat. And they were _lovers!_ I cannot make this shit up.” He turns to the man beside him, motioning to the two of you bound side by side in the center of the room. “What do you think Jakey Boy?”

“Like something out of a movie, sir.”

“Too bad we can’t read Charge here’s mind. I’d love to see what he’s thinking about this whole thing.”

“You don’t have to read my mind to know that I think you’re a piece of shit,” Ortega growls, straining against the cuffs. You don’t need telepathy to know that he means both of you.

“Oof! Feisty. I like it.” Hollow Ground taps a finger against his chin and steps closer, looking puzzled. Mocking. There’s still a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Are you still sore about that whole Hood business?”

“ _Fuck you._ ”

“I would, but you’re not my type. Him though.” Hollow Ground gives you a once over that makes your skin crawl. “He definitely would. Probably thought about it more than once. But so many secrets – ain’t that right, Mini Me?”

“Leave him out of this,” Ortega hisses. Is he nervous? Or does he want to save you for himself, to take in later? You don’t know which option you feel worse about, but you have a strong hunch that it’s the latter. You wish he hadn’t come here. The emotional vulnerability is leaving you open to Hollow Ground’s steady chisel – any crack will turn it into a jackknife, and then you’re screwed.

“I definitely won’t! How you feelin’, Mini Me? Good? Bad? Your input is important to us.” You glare and force yourself to stay silent, which sets off something red and angry in his mind that you can feel splash against your shields. You made him annoyed. He likes to chat with his prey before he eviscerates them. Cats sometimes toy with birds before they break their wings.

He punches you in the face again, sending your chair almost tipping back. You see stars for a hot second, pain exploding in your lip as your teeth catch on the skin, tearing it open like he tears at your shields, prying you open like fruit. Exposing every live, sparking wire, every raw nerve. You desperately scramble to piece yourself back together, spitting blood onto the bright red carpet and watching it stain it darker. You’re suddenly reminded of a different time, a different chair, someone different punching you in the face.

You didn’t need that memory, so you swallow it down, glaring again.

“I asked you a question, _Mini Me,_ ” he smiles through clenched teeth, something fiery in his eyes. Out of stubbornness – or maybe suicidal ideation – you stay silent. Beside you, you think you hear Ortega mumbling under his breath. _Stop it._ You refuse to look his way – you don’t think you can stand seeing his terrified face, cheek bruising; you don’t want him to be scared for you. He shouldn’t be.

Hollow Ground sighs and snaps his fingers, and Jake moves forward, pulling something from inside his jacket. Something shiny. You only barely register what it is before hot white pain rips through your thigh and tears a scream out of you – half a second later is a boom loud enough to make your ears ring so you can’t hear Ortega scream your name in harmony with your own screech. Your armor isn’t built to stop bullets. And they took the Rat King from you – you think you can feel them searching for you, panicked, wanting their companion back. You don’t know where they’re keeping them.

You want them back too.

The pain and the fear are enough to let him in. He rushes forward with the feeling of warm air and cold gun metal, the feeling of hands against your throat. He wins.

“I hate guns,” he says, handing the weapon back to Jake, who keeps it trained lazily on Ortega, “so impersonal. Knives are better. And brains are better still.” He grabs you by the hair and makes you look at him as he tears apart your foundations brick by brick.

The pain is excruciating.

Blinding.

Searing.

Every memory of every agony is yanked to the surface simultaneously, and your senses are overloaded. _Flaying off your skin bones breaking electricity ripping through your muscles glass digging into your palms everything hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts._

You scream so loudly it echoes through the room and Jake is startled enough by the animal sound that he pulls the trigger and puts a bullet in the far wall; you think he might be shaking, but you’re not sure. You’re not sure of anything anymore. Your ears ring, your eyes are watering and swimming and – are you crying? You are. And drooling. Ortega is in a panic beside you, but all you can hear is _him._

It’s like being in a room made of glass, everyone on the outside, Hollow Ground and you inside. He wipes blood off his nose, looking about as shocked as he did when he took off your mask and saw his own face.

“Jesus,” he mumbles, then grins wide enough that it scares you – deep in your core; the fear settles into your marrow. Your skin and flesh are numb to everything except pain and his frigid hand against your face as he grabs you gently by the jaw and bends down, turning your face so you’re forced to look at Ortega tied to the chair beside you. He looks like he wants to vomit and cry and scream all at once.

“We’re gonna have so much fun together,” Hollow Ground says, voice saccharine sweet and dripping with promises of more. You hear the threat behind his words before he whispers it in your mind in the same spun-sugar voice.

_I’m going to break you down until there’s nothing left._

_And then you’re_ mine.


End file.
